All posts tagged refugees

Some 1,000 people fleeing Islamic State insurgents in Kobani, remain stranded in a no-man’s-land at the Turkish-Syrian border. Some have been sleeping in their vehicles for a month, waiting for the fighting around the city to end, meanwhile risking their lives. Read More »

Hussein al Obeid was nine years old when he started accompanying his parents and siblings on an annual journey from rural Aleppo in northern Syria to the Bekaa Valley in neighboring Lebanon where they worked as farmhands during harvest time on the estate of one of the area’s wealthiest landowners. Read More »

Chanting “we are refugees, no more prison” and waving African flags, thousands of African migrants flooded the beach promenade outside of the U.S. and French embassies on Monday to press the Israeli government into recognizing requests for political asylum.

On Sunday, more than 10,000 migrants – who mainly hail from Eritrea and Sudan – staged a several hour long rally in Rabin Square, the central plaza known for peace protests. The protests are the largest held by Israel’s African migrant community, estimated at about 60,000, since they began streaming over the porous border with Egypt about eight years ago. Read More »

A highly contagious disease caused by a virus, polio had effectively been eradicated in past decades from all but three countries in the world–Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria–according to the WHO, until the recent outbreak in Syria. The illness mostly affects children and can lead to paralysis, and even death. Read More »

It’s no secret that Lebanon and Syria are intertwined politically, economically, and socially in ways that have become all the more evident since the war started raging in Syria more than two years ago.

A new study by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, or ESCWA, shows just how related the two countries’ economies are–and what the likely impact on Lebanon will be if the war lasts for years.

One in four people in Lebanon these days is Syrian–a jarring fraction considering the country’s population of roughly 4 million surged 25% in just two years. Syrians fleeing the war flood the streets of most Lebanese cities and towns. Read More »